droppin' cyance

Saturday, October 11, 2008

NEW BLOG: DUB CYANCE

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Reggae Rising 2008

Mercedes and I headed up to Piercy, CA over the weekend for our 3-Year anniversary to catch Reggae Rising. It was fun camping out in the sun and checking out hours upon hours of reggae all-stars, including Tanya Stephens, Junior Reid, Don Carlos, Sizzla, and more! The 3-day festival was very well organized and the overall vibe was super positive. We met reggae headz as far south as San Diego. That says a lot about the reputation of Reggae Rising, even though the name was changed last year due to legalities.

It was amazing to hear how reggae music has influenced dubstep, drum & bass, and all forms of modern music with its pulsing basslines, funky skanks, and enlightening vocals. I didn't realize how rich and deep reggae music ran and I've been having fun discovering more about the artists. Check out the iTunes feature on Reggae Rising for some essential listening.

This was our first time to Reggae Rising, but definitely not our last.

San Francisco, CA – On Thursday July 10th, MEZZANINE and SureFire Productions join forces to present one of the biggest dubstep nights San Francisco has seen. The headliners of the night are the mighty Kode 9 and Hatcha, two of the most recognized names in dubstep music. Both Kode9 and Hatcha are early pioneers of the burgeoning dubstep sound, even before there was a name for the genre.

South London-based Kode 9 (Steve Goodman) has been DJing for the last 15 years and producing for the last 10. He is also the owner and founder of the respected Hyperdub record label. Hyperdub has broken the critically acclaimed artist Burial to a worldwide audience and continues to release the most cutting edge dubstep to date. According to Time Out London, Kode9’s debut album, Memories of The Future, with dub poet Spaceape, is “full of dread in both senses of the word…and set to become a modern classic.” Kode 9, who mixed the Dubstep Allstars, Vol. 3 CD, showcases his unique style of mixing at his debut appearance at the MEZZANINE.

Another dubstep founding father is the illustrious Hatcha (Terry Leonard), who mixed the Dubstep Allstars Vo. 1 and Vol. 4 compilations on Tempa. He was the headliner at SureFire’s first all dubstep event in 2006 and returned for SureFire’s one-year anniversary in October of 2007. Considered to be one of the scenes leading DJ’s and tastemakers, he holds residency on London's Kiss FM, is half owner of Big Apple Records, and is a noteworthy producer collaborating with Skream, Kromestar, Benga and more. SureFire welcomes back Hatcha on one of the best sound systems in San Francisco.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

May Madness (Grime City 3 Year, Dizzee Rascal)

It's been too long since I blogged, but I have some sweet gigs on the horizon.

Grime City is turning 3 years old. Dubstep, grime, and sublow music in San Francisco has grown exponentially in that time and Grime City is still the top party to brock out to.

Company Flow got me into El-P and his Def Jux empire. Dizzee Rascal got me into grime, which eventually led me to dubstep. Two pioneers of their genre on the same label and together on one bill with the Grime City crew. May 21st is also my 30th birthday and I'm ringing in the next decade in style - a massive lineup!!! Hope to see you out.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Ending 2007 With a Bang!

2007 has been an amazing year for Bay Area dubstep. So many shows of historic proportions and inspiring new music from a hungry pack of local producers. Just listen to the B.A.D. Vol. 1 compilation presented by Ripple to hear the budding scene growing.Closing out the year includes Grime City, Skream at the Regency Center, and a special New Year's Eve Grime City.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Did Drum & Bass Lose Its Cool?

This article reminds me of when I just got into d&b and started DJing. I thought d&b would change the world. In a way it did shape mine.

Now Breakbeat Science is no longer in New York, Phuturo in San Francisco has ended, and I've been sorting through my d&b records to sell back to Amoeba.

Did d&b lose its cool?

Fly Life

A Full-Circle Farewell

Drum'n'bass may never conquer the world, but it managed to outlast this column

by Tricia Romano

May 29th, 2007 8:35 PM

I'm ending it the way I started.

Once upon a time, the only music I listened to was drum'n'bass. Hip-hop was on top of the charts, but all I cared about was Ed Rush and Optical. DB and Dara, New York City's local purveyors of jungle, were my saviors. Without fail I went to all the weekly parties—Konkrete Jungle, Direct Drive, Camouflage, and Testpress Sundays—and spent all my money at the record store Breakbeat Science, back when it was on East 9th Street. In 1997, when I was a Voice intern, drum'n'bass was on the rise; in 1999, when I moved here permanently from Seattle, it was at the height of its cool, coasting on big-time releases from Roni Size and Grooverider, its practitioners and fans hoping against hope it'd cross over. It never did.

Back then, I'd spend every Sunday night at Testpress, the weekly jam hosted by DJ Swingsett and held at Drinkland on East 10th. There, I'd see local DJs like Delmar and Roy Dank, and watch TC Izlam, one of the only American jungle MCs worth hearing, guide us over the beats in a bar that was too small and with a sound system too tiny to contain the massiveness that is drum'n'bass. I'd listen as different d'n'b obsessives would talk about the latest cuts on dubplates, and argue over who was the better female junglist—DJ Reid Speed or DJ Empress. (They're both great.)

Believe it or not, drum'n'bass isn't dead. Don't get me wrong: It isn't cool or hip in the slightest. Its followers don't wear skinny pants or flaunt asymmetrical haircuts. Celebrities don't play special "DJ sets." And you won't find any pictures of drum'n'bass events on Last Night's Party, or photos of fans mocked in Blue States Lose. It's a world away from Cobrasnake and Ruff Club and Susanne Bartsch and Motherfucker and the Box and 205 Club and the Trinity and basically everything my life is now. It's almost like a parallel universe.

A handful of drum'n'bass parties still thrive in New York. Camouflage is still kicking Tuesdays at Sin Sin Lounge on East 6th Street—it's been going on as long as I've lived here. And the nine-year-old Direct Drive soldiers on despite losing its latest location, Tonic, when the club closed a few weeks after the party moved there. DD has also survived moves from Baktun, Rothko, Movida, and R'N'R (the old Cooler), which are all now closed as well. "We'll kill your club," says Cliff Cho, a/k/a DJ Seoul. They are now concentrating on special events held at the Sullivan Room.

At the venerable club Love, DJ DB has an event called the Secret Night of Science, held the second Friday of each month. He specializes in the softer side of d'n'b, and is successful enough that as many as 425 people have come out, many of them new converts. "That was the challenge," says DB, who runs the night with DJ Place 42. "We didn't want the traditional d'n'b stand-around arms-folded nodding-your-head crowd. We wanted girls. You ever heard of girls?"

Meanwhile, the king of them all, Konkrete Jungle, has been going on since 1994, and is now held at the Pyramid on Avenue A. (They've only missed two Mondays, both due to snowstorms.) I went earlier this month to see who exactly goes to a drum'n'bass party on a Monday night. Answer: not many folks. And even then, it was mostly boys who appeared to be of college age, wearing the requisite baggy pants and hats, dancing the raver dance (the one that lies somewhere between jazzercise and b-boying with imaginary glowsticks), something I haven't seen in a while.

As for girls, there were a few, composing maybe five percent of the sparse crowd, including the two who were onstage: a female MC named Dyer and my old friend Christina Ingram, a/k/a DJ Empress.

"There aren't that many girls, still?" I asked Mac, the head of Konkrete Jungle. He was looking very much like the schoolteacher he is, sitting at the wooden table, his glasses resting on his nose, a pencil resting in his hand. "I blame the Usual Suspects and Bad Company for that," he said, referring to the dark tech-step producers who specialized in sonic wizardry and scaring the bejesus out of you with monstrous basslines. I, with my heavy metal past, loved it; when I spun drum'n'bass, I'd play track after track of the dark stuff. Other girls, not so much. (My all-time fave 12-inch: Ed Rush, Optical, and Fierce's "Cutslo (Locust remix)," b/w "Alien Girl" on Prototype. Yes, you are reading a foreign language.)

The bass rumbled the walls of the near-empty room; I watched as Empress spun effortlessly. When I first moved here, I thought she was the coolest person on earth—an impossibly hot, fashionable girl who played the fiercest, hardest music, and who gained respect from the toughest critics of all—the U.K. jungle gods. Watching her a few weeks ago, she still was the coolest person on earth, even if she would never pose in front of the MisShapes' wall. (Who the fuck am I kidding? This makes her even cooler.)

"It's definitely not the cool thing anymore," DB says. "But I was into it before it was a cool thing. Maybe it'll be the cool thing again, one day."

I went to Konkrete Jungle to end my official participation in New York nightlife the way I began it nearly eight years ago. This is my final column. After five years, I'm hanging up the Fly Life hat to become a staff writer and broaden my horizons (read: see daylight).

I'd like to dedicate this column to the people who served as my introduction to New York nightlife, and those who tolerated me for many years, including but not limited to Siouxie Zimmerman, Gamall Awad, Justin Bond, Mario Diaz, Murray Hill, Larry Tee, Tommie Sunshine, Lyle Derek, Honey Dijon, Sherry Vine, Misstress Formika, the World FamousBOB*, Julie Atlas Muz, Robert Johnson, Tommy Saleh, Mandy Brooks, Kimyon, Elan Ackerman, the MisShapes, and Thomas Onorato. Thanks to Mr. Musto, Frank Owen, and Steven Lewis for the nightlife education. Thanks to David Rabin and Robert Bookman for hours of healthy discourse and ideological rabble-rousing. Norman Siegel, Paul Chevigny, and the many cabaret-law activists who've fought to get this stupid law off the books—you are my heroes. There are more: You know who you are.

And I will always remember, mostly with fondness, all of the parties and places I've seen: Motherfucker, MisShapes, Siberia, Mama's Bar, Rated X, the Cock, the Hole, Halcyon, Matter:/form boat rides, Bunker at subTonic, the Dark Room, Nublu, P.S. 1, Body and Soul, Shelter, Cielo, Centro-Fly, Luxx, APT, Plant Bar, Filter 14. There are too many people to thank (don't worry, I won't soon forget) and too many moments to immortalize. I'd need three columns to do everyone justice, but I don't have that. Party over: out of time.